Upcoming Change to Concur Notifications

History and Current Process

As many of you may know, the University rolled out the current PCard program a little over two years ago. With the roll out of the new program, we implemented Concur notification emails to cardholders and their delegates (only delegates that have a check mark in “Receives Emails” will receive a notification) to remind them of aging transactions awaiting processing and submission in Concur. Cardholders/delegates currently receive two types of reminders prior to submitting their transactions:

• Unassigned Transactions Reminders - sent to the cardholder for transactions that have not been included in an expense report. Advising that reports are to be submitted within 28 days of the post date.
  • Reminders are sent at 7, 14, and 26 days and cardholders are encouraged to notify their CFAO if they are traveling and unable to meet the 28 day time limit.
  • On day 29, advised they are advised that their card will be suspended until the transactions are substantiated and report submitted. Additionally, this counts as a violation of policy Note: if cardholder has reported to their CFAO prior to day 28 that they are travelling, the card will not be suspended, nor will it be a violation of policy. Please disregard notice.
• Unsubmitted Report Reminders - sent to the cardholder for reports that have been prepared but have not yet been submitted for approval. They are advised that reports are to be submitted within 28 days of the earliest transaction post date.
  • Reminders are sent at 21 and 26 days and they are encouraged to notify their CFAO if they are traveling and unable to meet the 28 day time limit.
  • On day 29, they are advised that their card will be suspended until the report is submitted. Additionally, this will count as a violation of policy Note: if they have reported to their CFAO prior to day 28 that they are travelling, the card will not be suspended, nor will it be a violation of policy. Please disregard notice.

Why is Change Needed?

Over the past two years, we have gathered feedback from all of you regarding the Concur notification process. We have heard two major pain points:

• The reminders do not provide transactional details for the cardholder/delegate to easily know why they are receiving the notifications.
• By having two different types of reminders, there are instances where the cardholders/delegates are receiving multiple conflicting emails on the same day.
  • Ex. Cardholder receives the 26-day Unassigned Transactions reminder. They pull the transaction into an expense report, but do not submit it on the same day. This triggers the 21- and 26-day Unsubmitted report reminder to be sent on the next day because the transaction now meets the requirements for this report.

The Finance department has been working with Concur to streamline this process and make notifications more transparent for our campus customers. Please be advised that notifications are the only thing changing. There is no impact to the PCard policy or procedures.

New Notification Process

Beginning on December 10th, 2024, we will implement the new notification process which will combine the two reminder types outlined in the History and Current Process section into one reminder type. This reminder will be called “Unsubstantiated Transactions Reminder”. For the purpose of this process, a transaction is not considered substantiated until it has been pulled into an expense report AND submitted for financial approval.

Cardholders and delegates will notice the following changes to this notification email.

• Transactional detail will be added in the form of a chart to make it clear as to why they are receiving the email (see screenshot below).

  
  • The report name column will be filled in for any transactions pulled into an expense report but not yet submitted for financial approval.
  • Per University policy, a late submission violation is at the transaction level. This means if there are two transactions on your reminder, this will count as two violations if not substantiated within 28 days of the post date.
• One reminder type will ensure that the cardholder only receives one email on the exact day that it reaches each of the reminder dates.
• CFAOs will be copied on reminders starting at day 21 (rather than 26 days in the current process) so that they are able to better manage and support cardholders in meeting policy deadlines.
• LAST NOTICE will be added to the 26-day reminder email to make it stand out as urgent to the recipients.

Unsubstantiated Transactions Reminder will follow the following schedule:

• Reminders will be sent on day 7, 14, 21, and 26 regardless of whether they are in an expense report or remain unassigned to a report. The cardholder will be encouraged to reach out to their CFAO if they are unable to meet the 28-day time limit.
• On day 29, the cardholder will be advised that their card will be suspended until the transactions are substantiated. Additionally, this will count as a violation of policy

Note: if the cardholder has reported to their CFAO prior to day 28 that they are travelling, the card will not be suspended, nor will it be a violation of policy. Please disregard notice.

Questions? Please submit a ticket with Finance Customer Care or email financecustomercare@ohio.edu.